BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists

Subject: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 09:28 AM

Surely this topic was created for BS threads. You have to love America: it constantly generates the most hilariously ironic stories. It is like those games you play where you put 3 separate topics together at random. The U.S. Army has dismissed 9 Arab linguists because they were gay. Unmade Bedouins?

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Troll
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 09:39 AM

It is ironic and also a bit tragic. They were probably dismissed because Gays are supposedly more susceptible to blackmail. You can't have people who may be compromised in sensitive jobs. It's rather a bitch but there it is.
If there was complete acceptance of Gays, this sort of thing wouldn't happen because the "other side" would have no leverage. As it is...

troll

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: mooman
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:17 AM

You can't have people who may be compromised in sensitive jobs

Hmmm...where would that leave politicians!

moo

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:19 AM

particularly former Pres. Clinton!

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:13 AM

The state department and the pentagon have never been quite sane. Look what they did to Alan Touring.

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: BanjoRay
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:34 AM

Surely if they were known to be gay, they were no longer susceptible?
Ray

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: irishajo
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:40 AM

Maybe they wanted out.

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 12:09 PM

Here's an AP article about it: clickety.

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Ringer
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 12:13 PM

Alan Touring, misophist? Who he?

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 01:57 PM

Touring ? A brilliant engineer and mathematicial genius. Responsible for much of the primative computer systems used to break "Enigma" 1939/1945.

Homosexual, convicted of "indecency", and ostracised post war. Alan Turing took his own life.

His acheivements in early computing live on in the Turing Test, a means of measuring artificial intelligence. Basically, if you can have a threeway, or more, random 'Keyboard' conversation with an AI computer and a human control, and not be able to tell between the control and the AI - then that AI is "artificial intelligence"

I wonder what Turing would make of the Mudchat room - even without the, Ahem !, Hull contingent.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 02:30 PM

I mean, don't we need all the arab linguists we can get, gay or not? talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

...or was that in Manassas?

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Nerd
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 02:31 PM

Troll,

now that it has been publicized that these guys are gay, the other side DOES have "no leverage" to blackmail them, 'cause everybody knows.   That's the stupid thing about the U.S. Military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It CREATES the problem of employees who MUST be secret about their homosexuality, then cans them because they can be blackmailed by people who threaten to reveal the secret! It's not a case, of "oh, well, there it is." It's a case of "why is it there?"

Anyway, why do you just assume a gay person is more suceptible to blackmail? Don't we all have secrets we'd rather not have the whole world know about?

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Troll
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 06:58 PM

Nerd, the problem was already there. Before "don't ask, don't tell" Gays had to be secretive because they were subject to immediate dismissal if it were discovered and there was an active effort made to ferret out homosexuals in the armed forces.
They were considered to be more suceptible to blackmail because if they were "outed" they were ruined. No one would knowingly hire a homosexual and some were even shunned by their own families.
I realize that this is normally NOT the case today in most cases but when you are dealing with intelligence and national security you do not take chances.
If it is of any consolation to you, Gays are not the only ones who are targeted. Drunks, compulsive gamblers, adulters, in short anyone who does things that would either compromise their effectivness or might give an enemy blackmail leverage is out.
A certain amount of paranoia is desirable in security. The trick is not to be TOO paranoid.

troll

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:09 PM

Gareth's bio of Turing is excellent. After the was the only places doing the kind of work Turing did were in the US. No visas for those dirty gays.

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: PageOfCups
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:11 PM

Maybe they were dismissed because they weren't cunning linguists.
Ouch! Ow! Okay, stop throwing things!!

PoC

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:20 PM

Beat me to it, PofC!

The Army has always known there were gays; when it served their purposes they turned a blind eye. My brother was at the Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey. When he and the others who'd been trained there were sent to Germany, they landed in Frankfort. The regular sargent who met them was contemptuous of them and greeted them with "Alright you Monterey Marys!" At that point in his life my brother didn't even know he was gay, but it seems the Army thought they all were because their jobs were considered "prissy" and/or "cushy."

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

kat

Subject: RE: BS (The Best Ever?): Gay Arab Linguists
From: Troll
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:37 PM

According to CNN, they were in training.
Kat, anyone who has a "soft" job in the military is considered to be not very manly. The Band, mmedical personnel, office workers etc come in for a lot of teasing and sometimes hostility.
The one group that does NOT get any grief are the Fleet Marine Corpsmen. Bad-mouth a "doc" around a combat Marine and he may hand you your head. Incidentally, all Marine Corpsmen come from the Navy. My brother was one.

troll